Emotions in Art

Have I mentioned how much I love art? Ideas that come from people using their creative gifts to express themselves send chills down my spine. Art is form, shape, expression and my favorite – color.

Colors, like music, can affect a person’s moods and thoughts. I recently read somewhere that if you eat off of a blue plate, you will take smaller portions. Is that true? Could blue affect me like that? I’ve not noticed. Mostly blue makes me feel calm; that’s why I take so many photos of the sky.

The artist’s expression should elicit strong feelings within the observer. Form and shape, or the lack of them, in art can set a viewer on edge – like when geometric shapes feel harsh and deal a blow of rigidity. Does this remind anyone else of the “Partridge Family” while at the same time feel like a wall?

(Piet Mondrian “Composizione,” 1921)

Melting clocks cause me to feel soft and distressed. That heat must be super intense to melt those clocks.

(Salvador Dali “The Persistence of Memory,” 1931)

Umbrellas in a park cause the onlooker to feel the afternoon heat as well as a choking sensation under the sun – unless you look closely and see the pointillism, which can cause one to rub the blur from the eyes. How could those people sit in full dresses and suits on the grass like that?

Each one of these paintings elicits a strong uncomfortable feeling in me, and I study the colors. The first painting straight up pushes me away, the second draws me unwillingly into it and after studying the third for awhile, I am sitting on the grass myself.

Take a moment each day to study a piece of art, or a piece of beauty, as a small meditation for calmness and peace. I do.